Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog : The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences

“Kitty Burns Florey seems to write from a great wellspring of inner calm that derives from a gleeful appreciation of life's smallest details.” —Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls Once wildly popular in grammar schools across the country, sentence diagramming has fallen out of fashion. But are we that much worse for not knowing the word-mapping method? Now, in this illustrated personal history that any language lover will adore, Kitty Burns Florey explores the rise and fall of sentence diagramming, including its invention by a mustachioed man named Brainerd “Brainy” Kellogg and his wealthy accomplice Alonzo Reed ... the inferior “balloon diagram” predecessor ... and what diagrams of sentences by Hemingway, Welty, Proust, Kerouac and other famous writers reveal about them. Florey also offers up her own common-sense approach to learning and using good grammar. And she answers some of literature’s most pressing questions: Was Mark Twain or James Fenimore Cooper a better grammarian? What are the silliest grammar rules? And what’s Gertude Stein got to do with any of it? Sister Bernadette's Dog Barking: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences 154 pp. "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences is a 2006 book by author Kitty Burns Florey about the history and art of sentence diagramming. Florey learned to diagram sentences as a Catholic school student at St. John the Baptist Academy in Syracuse, New York. Diagramming sentences is useful, Florey says, because it teaches us to "focus on the structures and patterns of language, and this can help us appreciate it as more than just a vehicle for expressing minimal ideas". Florey said in a 2012 essay "Taming Sentences":When we unscrew a sentence, figure out what makes it tick and reassemble it, we interact with our old familiar language differently, more deeply, responding to the way its individual components fit together. Once we understand how sentences work (what's going on? what action is taking place? who is doing it and to whom is it being done?), it's harder to write an incorrect one.Sentence diagramming was introduced by Brainerd Kellogg and Alonzo Reid, professors at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, in their book History of English published in 1877."Keywords: KITTY BURNS FLOREY SISTER BERNADETTE DOG BARKING DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES ENGLISH GRAMMAR REFERENCE LANGUAGE Once Wildly Popular And Used By Teachers Across America To Teach Grammar, Sentence Diagramming Is Now A Lost Art To Most People. But From The Moment She Encountered It In The Seventh-grade Classroom Of Sister Bernadette, Kitty Burns Florey Was Fascinated By The Bizarre Method Of Mapping The Words In A Sentence. Now A Veteran Copyeditor, Florey Studies The Practice In A Funny Look Back At Its Odd History, Its Elegant Method, And Its Rich, Ongoing Possibilities--from Its Birth At The Polytechnic Institute In Brooklyn, To A Consideration Of How It Works, To A Revealing Look At Some Of Literature's Most Famous Sentences In Diagram. Along The Way, Florey Explores The Importance Of Good Grammar And Answers Some Of Language Lovers' Most Pressing Questions: Can Knowing How To Diagram A Sentence Make Your Life Better? And What's Gertrude Stein Got To Do With Any Of It?--from Publisher Description. Enter The Dog -- Times Change -- General Rules -- Poetry & Grammar -- Youse Ain't Got No Class -- Diagramming Redux. By Kitty Burns Florey.